An attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Giving incitement the stamp of approval

It
all began as a worthy initiative of the “Council of Religious
Institutions of the Holy Land.” The Council includes Israel’s Chief
Rabbinate and Muslim and Christian religious leaders and aims to advance
understanding and dialogue between the different religions. It decided
to sponsor a research project that would examine the way Israeli and
Palestinian Authority school text books portrayed the other, in order to
promote changes and improvements as need be. Professor Bruce Wexler
from the United States took up the challenge and obtained half a million
dollars from the US State Department to support the study. He brought
on board Professor Daniel Bar-Tal from Tel Aviv University and Professor
Sami Adwan from the Palestinian side, and the project got underway.

This
topic was not new to the researchers. They had dealt with the subject
in the past and in fact had already formulated their opinions. The
results of the research, one may suspect, were never in doubt. Its conclusions are that
both sides’ school books are plagued by bias and a negative portrayal
of the other side, even if the bias displayed by the Palestinian books
is slightly greater. Most importantly, the “research” absolves the
Palestinians of the accusations made against them regarding incitement.
Thus another well-worn Zionist myth, which claimed that the
Palestinians’ text books educate for hatred, and that Israeli text books
are much more reasonable, was, as it were, disproved The Israeli
Ministry of Education made clear that it would not cooperate with the
research, due to its severe biases and distortions, and rejected the
study’s findings from the outset.

Distorting the research

In
response to the Education Ministry’s reservations, Bar-Tal rides out to
defend his honor. The very idea that someone would think of raising
doubts regarding the sacred truth coming out of his school of thought is
scandalous. So allow me to raise several question marks regarding the
quality of the professor’s research, whose academic work is difficult to
separate from his political opinions. For example, in a study which
claimed to analyze Israeli public opinion, Bar-Tal examined the public’s
perception of the Partition Plan. The majority of Israelis, he notes,
know that the Arab side opposed the plan. This view, Bar-Tal opines,
reveals that the Israeli collective has adopted a “simplistic approach.”
Why? Because “26.6% of Israelis did not know that the Partition Plan
offered 1.3 million Palestinians 44% of the territory, and six-hundred
thousand Jews 55%.” One has to strain to decipher the connection between
this piece of information and the celebrated scholar’s conclusion that
this indicates a “distortion of memory” on the part of the Israeli
collective.

In
reality it is not the memory that is distorted but the research. First
of all, on the factual level, the majority of the territory which was
designated for the Jewish state consisted of the Negev, much of which
was an uninhabited desert. Even the city of Beersheba, as well as the
majority of the fertile territory, was designated for the Arab side.
Second, the Partition Plan was based on, among other things, the clear
understanding that hundreds of thousands of Jews were waiting to enter
the Jewish state, whether Holocaust survivors or Jews from Arab lands,
who by then were already suffering from increased persecution (for this
very reason British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who insisted that
Holocaust refugees be rehabilitated in Europe, opposed the Partition
plan.) And finally, even according to Bar-Tal, 74% of the Jewish
population was aware of the facts regarding population numbers and
territory percentages. Where then is the “distortion”? Rather, what
Bar-Tal presents in this research is nothing but a highly-questionable
attempt – one that is political, misleading and mistaken – to explain,
and in essence to justify, the Arab rejection of the Partition Plan.

Bar-Tal
is correct about one thing: The majority of Israeli pupils lack
knowledge regarding many historical events. They don’t know about the
pogroms against Jews in Arab lands. But most of them do know about the
massacre at Deir Yassin. They don’t know that a greater number of Jews
were expelled or forced to leave Arab countries than Arabs who were
expelled or fled Israel. They don’t know that during that time period,
the 1940s, population transfers were the norm. They don’t know that the
Second World War concluded with the transfer of twenty million people
within Europe alone in order to make way for the creation of
nation-states. Has anyone heard Bar-Tal complaining that Israeli pupils
are ignorant of these very important facts?

Soon
after “Operation Cast Lead,” the celebrated professor claimed that “the
widespread support for the operation confirms the primary insight which
arises from this study: that the Israeli Jewish population’s
consciousness has been overtaken by a sense of victimhood, a siege
mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness,
dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their
suffering.”

How
exactly is support for a response to the endless Hamas rocket attacks
proof of “dehumanization of the Palestinians?” Should such nonsense be
given the name academic research, or a political pamphlet detached from
reality? During the last elections, the professor announced publically
his support for the Meretz party. The fact that an academic has a
political identify is not the problem. The problem arises the minute the
political agenda distorts the academic research. Can it really be
claimed that Bar-Tal is a shining example of intellectual honesty? That
there is no connection between his political opinions and his research?

Already
in 2007 Bar-Tal declared, that “nearly all of the school textbooks
unquestioningly promote the narrative which perpetuates the conflict,
present the Arabs in a negative fashion and the Jews in a positive
light.” Why then was it necessary to pay hundreds of thousands of
dollars for this latest “research” when the researcher’s opinions were
already put down on paper six years ago?

King David’s Palestinians

Let’s
leave aside the professor’s political opinions for the moment and
examine the research itself. I obtained memos written by two members of
the study’s Scientific Advisory Panel, Professors Amnon Groiss and Elihu
Richter. While the research was still ongoing, these two scholars
highlighted substantial methodological flaws and the “omission of more
than forty significant texts” that appear in Palestinian school books.
To be clear, the omitted texts are precisely those that contain the
highest degrees of incitement (“invading snakes”; “the enemies that
split open women’s bellies” etc. etc.) The demand that these texts be
included was turned down with the excuse that it was not clear that the
words referred to Israelis or Jews. Really, how could we not have
realized that the Palestinians were referring to the Swedes? You see the
response and can’t believe your eyes.

In
identifying positive examples of education regarding the other, the
study cites a reference in a Palestinian text to the Sabbath. The only
problem is that this is actually a negative reference, meant to present
the Jews as fanatics who are unwilling to heal the sick on the Sabbath
(as opposed to Jesus, who is prepared to heal the sick on the Day of
Rest.) Not only is this portrayal false (saving lives trumps the
prohibitions against work on the Sabbath, and Jewish law evolved to
include permitting violations of the Sabbath to save non-Jews as well),
but it is presented as a positive reference to Judaism. The study’s
conclusions follow accordingly. There is no incitement.

Each side, the study determines, has its own “narrative.” What is the Palestinian narrative? A textbook describes:

The
prophet David son of Jesse led the Children of Israel and continued to
fight the Palestinians and the Canaanites, and established a kingdom
under his rule on part of the Palestinian lands.

Not
that there is a single historian in the world who thinks that there
were “Palestinian lands” in those days. The Greek historian Herodotus
mentions the term in the fifth century BCE, and later the Romans gave
the name “Syria Palaestina” to this piece of land following the Bar
Kokhba Revolt. But in the name of “narratives” every falsehood is given a
stamp of approval.

And
it only gets worse. When discussing negative portrayals of the “Other,”
the study includes the mere mention in Israeli textbooks of the Farhud –
the 1941 pogrom against Iraqi Jews – and the massacre of Israeli
athletes at the Munich Olympics as examples of negative portrayals of
the Arab side. What exactly are the study’s authors trying to say? That
it is forbidden to mention these events? Or perhaps the books should be
rewritten to state that “Muslim freedom fighters succeeded in striking
Jewish criminals in Baghdad and Munich”? According to this logic,
perhaps it should be forbidden to learn about the Nazis, since this
creates a negative image of the Germans.

The
Israeli textbooks, as the study notes, do mention the 1948 massacre by
the Irgun militia at the Arab village of Deir Yassin (but not the
majority of the pogroms that were carried out against Jews in Arab
lands). In contrast, there is not a single instance of self-criticism on
the Palestinian side. Not even of the Mufti Amin al-Husseini’s support
for the Nazis. There is also no mention of the fact that when the
Palestinian texts refer to bringing an end to the occupation, they mean,
almost without exception, the occupation of ‘Greater Palestine’ from
the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Or to put it even more
clearly: bringing an end to the State of Israel.

In
the Israeli texts one finds humanizing descriptions of Islam and of
Muslims, and a yearning for peace. The Palestinian texts are free of any
such sentiments. Yet the report covers up and glosses over the complete
contrast between the two educational systems. The report also adds
excuses for the troubling biases displayed by the Palestinian side.
They, as everyone knows, are the weaker party. Therefore, all is
permitted to them. In reality, the connection should be seen as
operating in the opposite direction: Because the Palestinians are mired
in incitement, self-delusion, and education for the negation of the
other, they remain weak and rejectionist. But Bar-Tal turns things on
their head.

The
two scholars from the Advisory Panel opposed the publication of the
study before the changes were made and flaws corrected. It should be
noted that they have not come out in support of the Education Ministry’s
position and do not directly criticize Bar-Tal. Yet it appears that
following the niceties at the start of their memos, their criticism
leaves no part of the study untouched. There is no need for the
Education Ministry’s refutation of the study’s methodology. The members
of the Advisory Panel do it themselves.

No comparison

IMPACT-SE,
the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School
Education at Hebrew University, has for many years engaged in
comparative research of school textbooks in Israel, Arab countries and
Iran, examining the degree to which they accord with the principles set
out by UNESCO. Following the publication of the Bar-Tal study, the Institute said:

[W]e
raise some serious questions about the Council’s report methodological
choices and about some of the texts and quotes omitted from its
analysis. Likewise, we find it difficult to reconcile the wide gap
observed between the quotes mentioned in the report and the conclusions
derived from them. …

The
report’s overall “forgiving” nature regarding the textbooks approved by
the Palestinian Ministry of Education, which still teach negation of
the Israeli other and its history, is definitely one major source of
concern.

It
is clear that the Israeli education system and its educational world
view cannot be compared with those of the Palestinian education system.
While Israeli education teaches peace and recognizes the national or
religious other, Palestinian textbooks emphasize a message of
non-acceptance and justify fight and struggle.

Regarding
the issue of maps, IMPACT-SE states that there are justified claims
that can be made regarding the Israeli texts, but that nevertheless the
comparison is baseless on the most basic level:

Israel
in general and the connection between the Jewish people and the Land
were systematically erased from the Palestinian school book system…the
maps present the borders of Palestine (from the Jordan River to the
Mediterranean Sea)…this is not only a difference of narratives, as
described in the research, but rather a basic difference in approach and
identity. The Palestinian education system negates Israel’s existence
while the vision promoted by the Israeli education system is one of
peace and integration.”

The
Institute goes on to present a series of quotes and comparisons, which
expose the troubling levels of incitement on the Palestinian side. These
are some of those same quotes which were omitted entirely from
Bar-Tal’s research.

IMPACT-SE just recently published its own updated study of Israeli textbooks from the years 2009-2012. The study was authored by the researcher Yael Teff-Seker, whose conclusion is as follows:

The
results of the current study (2009-2012) find that despite the
deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decade,
Israeli textbooks continue to relay messages according to which peace
with the Palestinians is both possible and desirable – though also
complicated and difficult to achieve. In addition, specific material
that could potentially damage peace and tolerance education was removed
from the curricula, and Israel’s educational program shows signs that it
will keep supporting and improving this trend.”

Higher truth

Here
we have two studies on the same topic, one by Bar-Tal and the other by
Teff-Seker. Bar-Tal claims that his professional honor was violated as a
result of the Education Ministry’s response, which raised doubts
regarding the objectivity of his study.

Academic
freedom in Israel allows Bar-Tal to search for highly-questionable
excuses for Palestinian rejectionism. To quote Cicero, paper does not
blush. And this study is set down on paper as well. Bar-Tal has the
right to write and publish without limitations. But how does one make
the ridiculous leap to claim that the Education Ministry must treat
research reflecting Bar-Tal’s school of thought as representing an
objective or higher truth? What is the connection between that logical
leap and academic freedom? Did anyone impinge on Bar-Tal’s freedom to
research and publish? Bar-Tal’s very insistence that his study be
declared “objective” is an insult to common sense and to the essence of
academic freedom, which requires critical investigation and questioning.

On second thought, it was not merely the Education Ministry’s right to reject the researcher and the research – it was its duty.

Regarding
one matter there is no dispute. All agree that there is no chance for
peace without recognition of the rights of the other, and without the
cessation of the campaign of incitement which continues unabated in the
Palestinian Authority. In order to stop incitement, it must be exposed,
denounced, and opposed. International funding for the books that
perpetuate the incitement must come to an end. The struggle against
incitement suffered a blow because of useful idiots like Bar-Tal. Next
time Israel demands that the Palestinians halt incitement, no one with
take it seriously. One thing that can be said for Bar-Tal: he is truly
committed to recognition and understanding. He is opposed to incitement.
Tragically, his report amounts to a stamp of approval for that very
incitement.

–

Ben-Dror Yemini is a researcher, journalist and a lecturer about the growing delegitimization of Israel (bdyemini@gmail.com)

We are hypocrites and cowards - we take freedom for granted as it is eroding underneath our feet‏

Message to offended Muslims

A GOOD, TRUE STORY NOT KNOWN BY MANY.....Air Force.

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

What happened?

Mark Hasten Tribute Video Touro College

Housing Quiz

The Record-so far...!

CBS special on Bengazi

Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Sally Nelson

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Islamization on the move

"What we are dealing with is Islamization. Islamization is the imposition of ideological norms in increasing severity. Like Nazification, it transforms a society by remaking it in its own image from the largest to the smallest of details."Daniel Greenfield

Toronto rejects Anti-Israel Ads...

Shrinking Lands

Why Israel opposes international forces in the jordan valley/

/why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/

Islam is Islam, And That’s It

Back in 2007, when confronted with the phrase “moderate Islam”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously responded: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and annotating this video: View video at http://gatesofvienna.net/

There's no racist like a liberal racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vz4PjxSmtoI

Ex-Navy SEAL Drops Bombshell On FOX: Says Government is Creating Conditions to Impose Martial Law R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuds14OBiE#t=156

American surprise

The Nairobi Mall Massacre

Ninh Chu Ninh Chu

Islam Untied

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE: The Lynching

What-are you against peace?

Sydney Wake Up The Horrific Muslim Infiltration Of Britain - Luton

Kerry: 'Core Issue of Instability ... Is the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'‏

Kerry is no friend. By endorsing the "Arab peace initiative" he shows his true intentions and beliefs . And by endorsing linkage he shows that he is either a liar or a fool.Syria is on fire, Egypt is at best incredibly unstable and this is due to Israel? It is out in the open!

A word to left-wing students

In their own words-ru listening?

"The lesson these Islamist groups appear to be drawing from events in Egypt is that democratic engagement with opponents is pointless. And that doesn't bode well for countries with strong Islamist movements..."

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare

Another Democratic slogan blown to h....

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

When nations and cultures ignore the early warning signs of the infiltration of radical Islam

The UK has 85 sharia courts. France has over 750 “no go zones,” Muslim enclaves where even French police don’t enter.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk&feature=email

No such thing as "Islamophobia"

However, if you do not want your positions challenged or criticized or even researched, make up a new "phobia"-shout it long enough and some "people", agenda driven, will use it. Ay, yes, the false term does keep many, many financially rewarded-follow the money.gs don morris, Ph.D.

Khader Adnan: Leader of Islamic jihad or innocent baker?

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.More...

Omar Barghouti's Propaganda at USC on January 12, 2012

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’ -- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.Clare M. Lopez

Americans are opening their eyes

Advertisers fleeing All-American Muslim 'propaganda'The American people are seeing through the propaganda piece that is TLC's All-American Muslim reality/dawah show, and responsible advertisers are fleeing in droves. The show aims to combat a trumped-up problem, "Islamophobia," by presenting Muslims who are just ordinary folk, and

Why Islam is Incompatible with Western Law

Col. Allen West answers a question on muslim terror

Challah's Gaza Rocket Counter

This Month:4Last Month:191

This Year: 562

Total since 2002: 12055

Cease fire Hamas style!!

Thanks http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/

"Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia" was a politically manipulative coinage designed to silence critics of Islamic supremacism.It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia.

10 Unknown West Bank Facts

Liberals Redefine "Extremism" and the "Political Center"

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist.The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Don’t ever call it ‘West Bank’ again

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Who do the territories belong to?

The legal borders of Israel under international law

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror YeminiIn 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

How Liberals Argue

Hebrew Univ-you rock!!

Judea and Samaria are not "occupied" lands-why?

Judea-Samaria were not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland but were recognized as part of the Jewish National Home recognized by San Remo and the League of Nations [1920, 1922] and by the UN charter [article 80; 1945].

"Political Correctness."

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."Texas A&M

Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul on the climate issues

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

WHAT Golda Meir actually said...

"When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir June 15, 1969: Interview in the UK Sunday Times

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member